During the past week, more than 30,000 Americans have signed a petition urging a Nobel Peace Prize for U.S. Army Private Bradley Manning, the whistleblower who was arrested nearly three years ago on charges that he provided an enormous quantity of classified documents to WikiLeaks.

Co-founder of the online group RootsAction.org, which launched the petition for a Nobel Peace Prize for Manning on March 25, Cohen said today: “If we begin from the original intentions for the Nobel Peace Prize, then anobvious top candidate is Bradley Manning, a young soldier and whistleblower who risked life in prison to inform Americans and the world about U.S. execution of, and preparation for, seemingly endless war. It’s not mererhetoric to suggest that Private Manning has been — in the words of Alfred Nobel’s will — ‘the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies . . .’”

Cohen is founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, where he is an associate professor of journalism. He is a former political pundit on national TV and the author of “Cable News Confidential: My Misadventures in Corporate Media.”